Close mom-child relationship ensures good future for kids : study

Published: Friday, February 8, 2008, 11:03 [IST]

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Washington, Feb 8 (UNI) A writer once said what the mother sings to the cradle goes all the way down to the coffin, and the saying goes in sync with the latest study that shows a mother's close and positive realationship with kids is the stepping stone for the child's good future.

According to the study, toddlers who share a close and positive bonding with their mother are well behaved, patient and more mature, which ensures a good future for them, the Science Daily reported.

''Most parents know that when they interact with their infant and young toddler, they are laying important foundations for the child's future development, now we have a better understanding of what that really means. Your investment in building a mutually responsive, positive, close relationship early on will generate considerable payoff several years later, '' says lead researcer Grazyna Kochanska from the University of Iowa, US.

For the study, the researchers tracked 102 mothers, fathers and babies, who had volunteered for the study from the time the children were 7 months old until they were almost 4 and a half years old.

It was found that children who had developed a close, positive, reciprocal, and mutually responsive relationship with their mothers in the first two years of their lives did much better in both respects--responding to their mothers' requests not to do something and regulating their own behavior--than children who hadn't developed such ties.

The researchers also explored how mutually responsive relationships between mothers and children worked. When mothers and babies develop this closeness in the first two years mothers don't need to use forceful discipline later to get their children to do what they ask and refrain from other behaviors.

And in turn, subtle control on the part of the mothers leads to better, more compliant, and more self-regulated behavior when the children are at preschool age.

Some of these findings were similar for fathers and children.

Mutually responsive, positive relationships between fathers and children in the first two years of life also were associated with children's better performance in tasks that called for self-regulation when the children were 4 and a half.